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PRESS OF 

R. H. BLODGETT & CO. 

30 BROMFIELD ST. 

BOSTON 



MED WAY 

MASSACHUSETTS 

PROCEEDINGS at the CELEBRATION 
of OLD HOME DAY .ijH* WEDNESDAY 
AUGUST THIRD, Nineteen hnndred four 



TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE 
DEDICATION OF THE REV. JACOB IDE 
MEMORIAL IN CONNECTION THEREWITH 



Published by 
THE MEDWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



Edited uy 
RUFUS G. FAIRBANKS. 



Gin 
Autho* 



Medway. — Incorporated as a town October 25, 171 3, in the twelfth year 
of the reign of Queen Anne; Hon. Joseph Dudley, Provincial Governor of 
Massachusetts. 

MiLLls. — Known as " The Old Grant " or " East Parish ". Set off as a 
separate town, February 24, 1885. 



W\\t Mthmn^ IftBtnrtral ^orirtg. 

Incorporated 1902. 
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. 



Board of Directors. 

President, Rufus G. Fairbanks. First Vice-President, Herbert N. Hixon. 

Secretary, Orion T. Mason. 

David A. Partridge. Amy Clark Hodges. 

Evan F. Richardson. Joseph Litchfield. 

Vice-Presidents. 
Dr. Addison S. Thayer, Portland, Me. 
AsAHEL A. Shumwav, Philadelphia, Pa. 
George P. Bullard, West Newton. 
David B. Hixon, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Henry A. Whitney, Bellingham. 
Rev. Rufus K. Harlow, Medway. 
Dr. George A. Leland, Boston. 

Treasurer. 
James T. Adams, Medway. 

Curators. 
Orion T. Mason, Medway. Daniel W. Newell, Medway. 

Herbert N. Hixon, West Medway. Joseph Litchfield, West Medway. 



Objects of the Society. — The collection and preservation of all matters 
pertaining to the history of this town and locality, the study of this material, 
the education of members and townspeople in historical and antiquarian sub- 
jects, the collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts and all articles connected 
with former times, and the publication from time to time of such articles as 
may be judged of interest or instruction to this locality. 

"in trraauring u|i tl^r inrmariala of tifr fatt;rra tor brat inanifrat iuir rryurd fur {iaatrriti|." 



ROSTER OF MEMBERS. 



Adams, James T. 
Adams, Eunice R. 
Adams, C. Albert 
Austin, Henry C. 
BuUard, Clara L. 
Bullard, Helen G. 
BuUard, Nannie 
Blake, Edward H. 
Bateman, Anna F. 
Blake, Mrs. Nellie 
Bullard, George P. 
Boyce, Mrs. Eva K. 
Clark, Samuel G. 
Clark, Sarah E. 
Cary, William H. 
Converse, Julius P. 
Clark, Mary D. 
Cary, Nellie J. 
Coombs, Alvin W. 
Deans, Charles H. 
Drawbridge, Rev. R. W. 
Drawbridge, Charlotte D 
Daniels Sadie J. 
Daniels, Josephine M. 
Dana, Charles H. 
Daniels, Dr. Edwin A. 
Fisher, Willard J. 
Fairbanks, Rufus G. 
Fisher, Frederick L. 
Fales, Herbert E. 
Fales, Nettie L. 
Fairbanks, Rufus A. 
Fairbanks, George L. 
Grant, Emma J. 



Gale, Hattie W. 
Hodges, Emma C. 
Hixon, Herbert N. 
Hixon, Harriet E. 
Hiller, Clara Thayer 
Hitchcock, William N. 
Hitchcock, Amy G. 
Holbrook, Miss E. R. 
Hamlin, Mildred L. 
Harding, Clark P. 
Howard, Edward L. B. 
Holbrook, Elmer E. 
Hodgson, Samuel 
Harlow, Rev. Rufus K. 
Hill, Don Gleason 
Hill, William F. 
Hewitt, Rev. George R. 
Hixon, David B. 
Hodges, Amy C. 
Leland, Dr. George A. 
Litchfield, Joseph L. 
, Mason, Orion T. 
Mason, Eva C. 
Mason, Marie G. 
Metcalf, Kate L. 
Metcalf, Esther M. 
Metcalf, S. Newman 
Nason, Dr. Osmon C. 
Nason, Dora 
Newell, Daniel W. 
Palmer, Harriet W. 
Partridge, David A. 
Partridge, George F. 
Prescott, John 



Prescott, Mrs. Maud 
Pierce, Rev. L. M. 
Partridge, Rev. Lyman 
Quint, Dr. Norman P. 
Roche, Fred B. 
Roche, Mrs. M. J. 
Richardson, Evan F. 
Richardson, Geneive F. 
Richardson, Elizabeth B. 
Richardson, Louis B. 
Rice, Lizzie D. 
Rice, Helen F. 

Spencer, Charles F. 
Smith, Charles M. 

Sanford, Edmund L 

Shumway, A. A. 

Shaw, Dr. Herbert W. 

Smith, George R. 

Stowe, E. Barron 

Tedford, Delia M. 

Thayer, Lydia S. 

Thayer, Dr. Addison S. 

Thompson, J. Warren 

Wheelock, Rev. Albert H. 

Wheelock, Mrs. A. H. 

Whiting, Wesley W. 

Ware, Inez A. 

Ware, Arthur 

Wilkinson, William H. 

Wilkinson, Mabel R. 

Wilkinson, Mrs. E. A. 

Whiting, Henry A. 

Washburn, Rev. George Y. 

Young, George A. 




SECOND MEETING HOUSE, I749-1816. 

THIRD MEETINC; HOUSE, 1816-I850. 

FOURTH MEETING HOUSE, PRESENT MILLIS CHURCH. 

THIRD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 1836-1870. 



SOME HISTORIC SITES IN AND ABOUT TOWN. 



1. " GEORGE FAIRBANKS' PALISADE." Location, north shore of 

Boggastow pond, Millis. Used as a residence by George Fairbanks, 
and a place of refuge from Indian attacks about 1660. [See Morse's 
History of Sherbom,] 

2. EDWARD CLARK HOUSE. Known as the " Putnam Clark house," 

built 1 710. Now in MilHs. 

3. FIRST MEETING HOUSE. 1715 to 1749. Site, Bare hill; stood 

just north of tomb in Millis cemetery. Destroyed by fire. 

4. SECOND MEETING HOUSE. 1749 to '816. Stood forty feet 

from the first meeting house. 

5. THIRD MEETING HOUSE. 1816 to 1850. Stood south of second 

meeting house, top of Bullard's hill. Steeple removed, and now the 
large vacant building in Rockville, known as «• the old safe factory ". 

6. FOURTH MEETING HOUSE. Built in 1850. The present Millis 

church. Rockville chapel built 1877. 

7. WEST PARISH MEETING HOUSE. Built 1749. Corner Main 

and Evergreen streets, adjacent to the " old burying ground ". Present 
church built 18 14. 

8. BAPTIST CHURCH. Built 1822-23, near comer Main and Winthrop 

streets ; moved to comer Main and Cottage streets, and used as a boot 
shop, later as Mechanics hall, and was burned Febmary, i88g. 
Present church edifice erected 1852. 

g. THE VILLAGE CHURCH. Built 1838, on Village street. 

10. THE METHODIST CHURCH. Located on Cottage street. Erected 

1859. 

11. ST. CLEMENT'S CHURCH. 1865, Main street, Millis. Built 1836, 

as the Third Congregational church. Moved across the street. Burned 
during church service, February 5, 1871. 

12. CHRIST CHURCH. Erected 187 1. School street. 

13. ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCH, Village street. Begun 1876. First ser- 

vice held August 12, 1877. 

14. CHARLES RIVER BRANCH RAILROAD. From the Village, 

through Rockville, to Norfolk. Built 1853; rails taken up in the 
night, 1864. 

15. TOWN POUND. Near Putnam Clark house, Millis. Built 1734, by 

Michael Medcalf ; cost £,t. Still in existence. 

16. OLD POWDER HOUSE. Site near Putnam Clark house, Millis. 

17. FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE, 1737. Site near Peter Adams house in 

Millis. First money voted for schools, May 13, 171 7, £,\, 

18. FIRST SAW MILL. Built 1665. Site, Boggastow dam, Millis. Grist 

mill built at Rockville, 1680. 

7 



8 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

19. LOWELL CARPET MFG. CO., bom on Winthrop street, on Chicken 

brook. Here was woven the first woolen carpet on power loom made 
in the United States. Mill taken down in i860 by Timothy Partridge. 

20. SCYTHE FACTORY. Established in Rockville, 1784. Lace mill, 

cotton factory and machine shop added. All burned in 1884. 

21. OLD COTTON MILL, or "Old White Mill". 1811 to 1881. Site, 

Sanford mill, Sanford street. 

22. HOLBROOK BELL FOUNDRY. Main street, Millis, from 1816 to 

1880. Cast 11,000 bells. 

23. CHURCH ORGAN FACTORY. Opposite bell foundry site. Estab- 

lished 1837. 

24. FIRST BOOT SHOP. Willard Daniels homestead on Braggville road, 

1828. 

25. SAW AND GRIST MILL, 1800. Erected on site of Electric Light 

station. Cotton mill added. All burned in 1850. 

26. KING PHILIP TREES. Variety, Nyssa. After the Me(a)dfield 

massacre of February 21, 1676, the Indians retired to this spot, 
destroying the only bridge over the Charles, located near present rail- 
road bridge. Here they held a savage feast and prepared an attack 
on the Fairbanks stone house at the farms, but were unsuccessful. 
Site of trees in rear of Moses Adams' farm, Millis. Now standing. 

27. FIRST BURYING PLACE. Junction of MiUis, Medfield and Sher- 

bom roads. Here was buried Capt, George Fairbanks, the first white 
settler (1657), and who died 1682 ; also the Lealands, BuUards, Morses, 
Brecks, Hills, Holbrooks, and many others. 

28. SECOND BURYING PLACE. Established in Millis territory, Octo- 

ber 29, 1 7 14, now called Prospect Hill Cemetery. 

29. THIRD BURYING PLACE. Established in West Medway, April 

12, 1750. Known as Evergreen (old) Cemetery. 

30. FOURTH BURYING PLACE. Established at Medway Village, June 

20, 1865 ; known as Oakland Cemetery. 

31. FIFTH BURYING PLACE, Established in 1876 on Oakland street ; 

known first as St. Patrick's, now as St, Joseph's Cemetery, 

32. WILLIAM T. ADAMS' BIRTHPLACE, Known as " Oliver Optic," 

and a successful story writer for boys. Site, where house of Joseph 
Sassak is now located on Ellis street. Buildings burned February, 
1892. 

33. OLD SHUMWAY HOUSE, Village street. Supposed to be 200 years 

old. Now standing. 

34. DR. NATHANIEL MILLER HOUSE, Original building erected 

about 1 68 1, on River End road at the " fording place ". 

35. CONTRIBUTIONS, May 30, 1825, the townspeople subscribed and 

paid $114.28 to assist in building Bunker Hill Monument. In 1678, 
George Fairbanks, Jr., gave one shilling and one bushel of corn, and 
Joseph Daniell gave two shillings, sixpence, and two bushels of com 
to the support of the new (Harvard) college at Cambridge. 



tii 




i^-i^;4r. 




FIRST MKETINC HOUSE, I715-I749. 



o3 



FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE, 1737-I.S23. 




KING PHILII- TREES, 1 676. 




SlTl-: ol- OLD STONE FORT. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 



Program 

6.00 A.M. Welcome the Day, with bells, whistles and cannon. 
10.00 <• Organ Selections. By Annie Bigelow Stowe. 
10.05 " Double Quartette. "Recessional" De Koven 

Florence Ives Atwood. Annie Campsey Ives. 

Lizzie HcNamara. Anna L. Bell. 

W. L. Scott, Ist Tenor. Elijah B. Stowe, Ist Basfi. 

Fred Smith, 2d Tenor. C. Fred Butterworth, 2d Bais. 

Prayer. Rev. George Y. Washburn of Everett. 

Welcome by the President. 

Male Quartette. " Old Oaken Bucket " Kiallmark 

Oration, "The Debt of the Country to New Eng- 
land," by Hon. Thomas E. Grover, of Canton, Mass. 

Singing. " America," Everybody. 

Dinner. William M. Fairbanks of Foxboro, Caterer. 

Organ Selections. Miss Stowe. 

Double Quartette. " Pilgrim Chorus" Lotnbardi 

Prayer. Rev. Seelye Bryant of Middlefield, Mass. 

Duet. " When life is brightest " Pinsuti 

Mrs. Atwood and Mrs. Ives. 

2.20 " Dedicatory Address. Rev. Rufus K. Harlow. 

3.00 " Male Quartette. " Home, Sweet Home " Giebel 

Recess. 

3.30 " Exercises at Monument in Evergreen Cemetery. 

Male Quartette. "Arise, shine, for the Light is 
come " Rhodes 

Unveiling and Strewing of Flowers by Twelve 
Little Girls. 

Dedicatory Formula. Rev. George R. Hewitt. 

Prayer. Rev. Dr. Frank A. Warfield, of Milford. 

Male Quartette. " Still, still with Thee " Gerrish 

Benediction. 



10.15 


It 


10.20 


i( 


10.30 


(( 


1 1.30 


<( 


12.00 


(( 


2.00 


p. M. 



lO MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 



Firat WtBt Partali Mtttbx^ Ifouae. 

Raised April 6, 1749. Stood approximate to and northwest of the Second 
Burying Place, on Evergreen, facing Main street. The building was forty feet 
long, and thirty-four feet wide, with twenty-foot posts between joints. Had a 
gallery and two rows of windows, but no steeple. Abandoned in 18 14. 

Erected 1814. In 1846 the cupola was removed and a spire built. The 
body of the house was reseated, the pulpit reconstructed, the gallery lowered 
and extended over the vestibule, and blinds applied. The walls were colored 
and carpets put down in the aisles. In 1873 the interior was again recon. 
structed, the pulpit recess added, and the heating arrangement changed. The 
walls and ceilings were frescoed. The chapel was built in 1874. During 
Rev. J. M. Bell's pastorate the spire was blown down and rebuilt. The sale of 
pews, in 1814-15, brought a fund of $3,000. Levi Adams, Esq., who died in 
1842, left the Society $1,200 for a parsonage. He also left $300 for supply of 
the Communion table. Mrs. Charlotte Slocum bequeathed $500 to the Sunday 
School library. 

(©fiSnal S^glater of ^eroith QUjurrlj of QII|nat in Mthmui^. 

Rev. David Thurston. Ordained June 23, 1752; resigned Feb. 22, 1769. 

Rev. David Sanford. Ordained April 14, 1773; died April 7, 1810, 

Rev. Jacob Ide. Ordained November 2, 1814; died January 5, 1880. 

Rev. Stephen Knowlton. Ordained Nov. 2, 1865 ; resigned Nov. 20, 1872. 

Rev. S. W. Segur. Ordained May 7, 1873 ; died September 24, 1875, 

Rev. James M. Bell. Ordained September 26, 1876; resigned July i, 1885. 




SECOND conc;re(;ational church. 



REV. JACOB IDE, D. D. 

Born in Attleborough, Mass., March 29, 1785. 

Lived on his father's farm until seventeen years of age. 

Fitted for college with Rev. Holman, pastor of Attleborough Congregational 

Church. 
Graduated from Brown University, Providence, R. I., in 1809. Valedictorian 

in his class. 
Taught school in Wrentham. 

Graduated at Andover Theological Seminary in 181 2. 
Preached at East Abington and at Portsmouth, N. H. 
Assistant to Dr. Griffin in Park Street church, Boston. 
Preached again at East Abington, and also at York, Maine. 
Ordained pastor of Second Church of Christ in Medway, November 2, 1814. 
Continued full pastorate to 1865 and senior pastorate to his decease, a period 

of sixty-five years. 
Degree of Doctor of Divinity conferred upon him by Brown University in 1837. 
Married Mary Emmons, daughter of Nathaniel Emmons of Franklin in 181 5. 
He prepared forty-three young men for the ministry. 
Editor of the Christian Magazine. 
Edited seven volumes, the works of Dr. Emmons. 

Invited to assume chair of theology in Bangor Seminary in 1832, but decHned. 
Preached centennial discourse October 20, 1850, which with forty sermons and 

lectures were published. 
Delivered his fiftieth anniversary address November 2, 1864, to an audience 

crowding the church. Many unable to get in. Seventy clergymen were 

present. 

He stated in this address that he had attended 175 ecclesiastical councils and 
preached twenty-seven ordination sermons. 

In his own parish he had performed 432 marriages. 
Baptized 510 persons and attended 745 funerals. 
Did similar service in surrounding parishes. 
Preached over 5,000 sermons from his own pulpit. 

Served the town of Medway on school committee for thirty years, between 
181 5 and 1850. 

Died January 5, 1880, aged ninety-five years. 
II 



12 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

REV. JACOB IDE. JR. 

Son of Jacob Ide, D. D. Born August 7, 1823. Attended preparatory school 
at Leicester and graduated at Amherst College in 1848. Taught school 
in Boston and at Leicester Academy. Studied theology under his father. 
Ordained March 26, 1856, pastor of the Mansfield Congregational church. 
Married Ellen M. Rogers in 1859. Member of House of Representatives 
in 1864, and State Senate in 1866. His pastorate continued forty-two 
years to his decease, March 26, 1898. 



^ 



OTHER CHILDREN OF DR. JACOB IDE. 

Rev. Alexis Wheaton Ide. Born October 10, 1826. Studied in public 
schools, and received theological instruction from his father. Ordained 
pastor of Stafford Springs, Conn., Congregational church, July 7, 1859. 
Resigned July 2, 1867, to live with his parents. Member of House of 
Representatives in 1872, and chaplain of the Senate in 1874. Died 
December 21, 1 901, at the age of seventy-five. 

Isabella T. Ide. Born February 6, 18 16; died November 18, 1863. 

Mary Ide Torrev. Born June 29, 1817; married Charles T. Torrey, 
March 29, 1837; died November 6, 1869. 

Henry Ide. Born October 23, 1818 ; died January 30, 18 19. 

Erastus Ide. Born January 10, 1820; died February 20, 1821. 

Nathaniel Emmons Ide. Born August 28, 1821 ; died July 29, 1847. 

Sarah Williams Ide. Born August 17, 1825 ; died January 20, 1826. 

Charles W. Ide. Born January 20, 1829 ; died August 29, 1829. 

George Hopkins Ide. Born May 10, 1830; died July 10, 1831. 

George Homer Ide. Born February 3, 1835; kiUed and buried on the 
battlefield of Cedar Mountain, Va., August 9, 1862. 




REV. JACOli lUr, JK 




address: "DEBT OF THE COUNTRY TO NEW 
ENGLAND." BY THE HON. THOMAS E. GROVER 
OF CANTON, MASSACHUSETTS* 



HAVE been invited to speak today on the " Debt 
of the Country to New England." The subject is 
a comprehensive one and opens a wide field for in- 
quiry. The growth of the nation has been so phe- 
nomenal, its prosperity has come from such varied 
sources, and the influence of New England has been so potent a 
factor in producing these results, that the time allotted to this 
address will permit only of a very superficial examination into the 
influence this section has exerted while playing its part in the great 
drama. 

Nor has progress been confined to the United States alone. We 
have only shared in what all the world has experienced. Measure 
the advance, and mark by comparison the rapid changes wrought 
in the last century. Should one of the early settlers, who nearly 
three hundred years ago laid the foundation of New England, be 
released from the sleep of death and reappear on earth, what would 
be his emotions of joy and wonder ! Yet he would look upon the 
transitions that have taken place since he passed from earth with 
scarcely less amazement than his ancestor of a much earlier time. 
Both of them would be more nearly related to a person living in 
the early part of the last century than they would be with us, and 
as they contemplated the changes produced by the inventions and 
discoveries of the last hundred years, and compared their own 
primitive and circumscribed condition with those of the present 
day, they might well think that the strange and marvelous tales of 
the East, in which are told the wonders wrought by magic and 
enchantment, were no longer mere creations of the imagination, 
but had become veritable deeds. 



* Delivered on Old Home Day, at Medway, Mass., August 3, 1904. 



t4 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

This onward movement, even to the personal comfort and con- 
venience it has brought, and in this movement New England has 
performed its share, may be largely studied in tables of statistics ; 
but there is a power growing out of the character and institutions 
of the people that does not appear in census reports, and in that 
the influence of New England stands pre-eminent. It is better to 
illustrate the force of this influence by reference to concrete exam- 
ples, than to indulge in declamation or abstract theories. 

Let us take as examples the public schools and town govern- 
ment, and before examining these subjects consider for a moment 
what manner of men the founders of New England were, for 
grapes do not grow upon thorns nor figs upon thistles. 

There was certainly nothing in the soil or climate of this section 
to give its settlers any advantage over colonies located elsewhere. 
The land was sterile, requiring severe labor, and not yielding abun- 
dant harvests. Farming, as in most new countries, was their 
chief occupation and means of resource. They lived under more 
adverse conditions, all things considered, than the people in any 
other part of North America. They came here to enjoy the free- 
dom that was denied them in England, and were far from being 
favorites of the home government. They could hope for no assist- 
ance from that quarter, for if they escaped persecution, the most 
they could expect was forgetfulness and neglect. 

In all the territory there was neither gold or other mineral 
wealth, in suflficient quantities to make its mining profitable. John 
Smith, the famous navigator and founder of Virginia, who had 
examined the rock bound, and to him, forbidding coast of New 
England, declared, "that he was not so simple as to suppose that any 
other motive than riches would ever erect there a commonwealth, 
or draw company from their ease and humors at home to stay in 
New England" ; and yet, to quote the words of the learned histo- 
rian, John Fiske, " of all migrations of peoples the settlement of 
New England is pre-eminently the one in which the almighty dol- 
lar played the smallest part." 

In intellectual capacity they were probably not superior or 
essentially different from the English speaking inhabitants of 
other sections. They were, however, to a greater extent than their 
rival colonists, men of strong character and great moral force, and 



OLt) HOME DAY, 1904 1$ 

it is these qualities rather than the intellect that bring permanent 
results. They were imbued with earnestness and intense convic- 
tions, characteristics that always exert extraordinary power. They 
were liberally endowed with that element called obstinacy in those 
with whom we disagree, and firmness in those of our own way of 
thinking. They had little wealth, but this perhaps in the early 
life of New England was hardly a misfortune to men of their char- 
acter and in their situation, as property is always timid and pov- 
erty generally hopeful. Moreover, they possessed in a large 
measure what has been well called " the genius of common sense." 

It is in the character of these men, not in their environments, 
that we trace the beginnings of the institutions they planted, and 
from these institutions there arose in a large measure the " Debt 
the Country owes to New England." 

There is an indescribable charm in studying the early history 
of New England. Indeed, the exile seeking a home is always a 
fascinating story, whether in fact or fiction. The simply-told 
narrative of Bradford possesses an interest that attracts us like 
the recital of the events attending the exodus from Egypt, the 
wanderings of Ulysses, or .^Eneas fleeing from burning Troy to 
build " the walls of lofty Rome." 

The territory known as Massachusetts for many years contained 
two colonies, the Colony of New Plymouth, and the Colony of 
Massachusetts Bay. The first settlement in the former was made 
by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1620, and in the latter by the 
Puritans at Boston, in 1630. The settlement at Plymouth was 
made originally under a grant of land obtained from the London 
Company, to which large concessions had been made in North 
America ; that at Boston under a charter from the king. These 
colonies, with eastern Maine, and those islands on the Massachu- 
setts coast which had not before belonged to either colony, were, 
June 8, 1692, united into the " Province of Massachusetts Bay 
in New England," under a new charter. After this date 
all general laws that were passed became operative upon the 
people of Maine and the islands, as well as the inhabitants 
in both colonies. The Province continued, or rather the people 
continued, to live under the Province charter till October 25, 
1780, when our present constitution went into effect. Maine 



l6 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

remained a part of Massachusetts until 1820, when it became a 
State. The time from the first settlements to the formation of the 
Province is known, historically, as the Colonial Period, and from 
the establishment of the Province to June 17, 1774, as the 
Provincial Period. 

I do not find that the Plymouth Colony took any measures to 
establish free public schools for all children, although schools were 
maintained in some of the towns, and the question of education in 
a general sense received considerable attention. That it should 
occupy the thoughts of men in their situation to any degree is 
remarkable, when the condition of the people is considered, and 
what is said of Plymouth is also applicable to the Massachusetts 
Colony. The settlers had difficulty at times in even procuring 
proper food to sustain life ; they were surrounded with wild beasts 
and tribes of savage Indians, and protection for themselves and 
families required continual watchfulness. 

In every respect they lived under great personal discomfort and 
extreme nervous strain. They were few in number, and the phy- 
sical labor required to build their houses and reclaim the land they 
were compelled to cultivate, was strenuous and unremitting. It 
would seem, under the circumstances, as though life itself would 
scarcely be worth the danger of preserving it, or that ordinary 
physical or mental health could sustain the burden they were 
obliged to bear. Their acts, however, not only show solicitude in 
looking out for the educational welfare of their children, but the 
small means they were able to allow for this purpose bring into 
prominence their precarious situation, so that in contemplating 
their condition, we are moved with both admiration and pity, — ■■ 
admiration for their courage, self-reliance and unbending tenacity, 
and pity for their destitute circumstances, and the dismal future 
that confronted them. Their poverty alone would seem in the 
language of Burke " to take their virtue to a market almost too 
high for humanity." If they possessed little of the refined forms 
of idealism they had in abundance that quality which shows itself 
in mighty deeds. 

In 1644, when the Colony was but twenty-four years old, a peti- 
tion was presented to the Commissioners for " A genrall Contribu- 
tion for the mayntenance of poore Schollers at the CoUedg at Cam- 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 I7 

bridge." The petition alleged, in substance, that because of their 
lack of means some parents were discouraged from sending their 
children to school, and some were forced to take them away too 
soon. The petitioners therefore asked that it might be "com- 
mended by you at least to the freedom of every family (wh is 
able and willing to give) throughout the plantation to give yearly 
but one-fourth part of a bushell of Corne or something equivalent 
thereto." These gifts, small in value as they appear to this age 
of greater things, came from generous hearts, and there was noth- 
ing in the giving to suggest ostentatious benevolence. 

In 1660, the record states " It is proposed by the Court unto 
the several townships of this jurisdiction as a thing to be taken 
into serious consideration that some course may be taken in every 
town that there may be a scholmaster sett up to train children in 
reading and writing." The Colony claimed to possess certain 
privileges in the fishery at Cape Cod, which it sold or leased and 
for which it received compensation. This it sometimes devoted to 
school purposes, for in 1672 it "did freely give and grant all such 
profits as might or should annually accrue or grow due to the col- 
lonies from time to time for fishing with netts or saines att Cape 
Codd for mackerel], basse or herring, as by said grant doth fully 
appear, to be imployed and improved for and towards free scooles 
in some towns of this jurisdiction for the training up of youth in 
litterature for the good and benefit of posteritie, provided a begin- 
ning were made within one year after the said grant ; and that the 
ordering and managing of said affaire was by said Court com- 
mitted to the Gov. and Assistants, or four of them." 

In 1678 five pounds were ordered to be paid " to the schoolmas- 
ter at Rehoboth in reference to the order of Court disposing such 
pay to be improved towards the keeping of a grammar scoole in 
each town of this jurisdiction as in said order is expressed." 

In 1 68 1, the Court ordered that of the Cape money be given 
"12 pounds thereof to Rehoboth, and 8 pounds thereof to Mr. 
Ichobod Wiswall's scool at Duxburrow," and in 1682 "the court 
have ordered the Cape money as followeth, viz : to Bastable scoole 
twelve pounds, to Duxburrow scoole eight pounds, and to Reho- 
both scoole five pounds." • 

But to the Massachusetts Colony belongs the credit of being the 



tS MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

first people in history to require compulsory education, and to 
inaugurate a free public school system to be supported by taxation, 
the foundation of all the attributes of sovereignty. In 1642, only 
twelve years after the settlement at Boston, it passed an act requir- 
ing parents and masters to teach their children and apprentices to 
read the English tongue, to know the capital laws, and to repeat 
the catechism. By another act passed in 1647 ^^ was provided 
that every township of fifty householders should employ some per- 
son to teach reading and writing to such persons as should come 
to them, and every township of one hundred householders should 
set up a grammar school, and hire a master who could " fit pupils 
for the University." The last provision, it would seem, was a 
rather pretentious attempt at that early day to promote higher 
education. Such grammar schools would take the same compara- 
tive rank as the best of our public high schools today. It was 
then eleven years since John Harvard had endowed the University 
that still bears his name and to which the act refers. The time 
had barely passed in the life of that noblest and grandest of all 
our institutions for learning since, as Dr. Holmes wrote, 

"... the seniors knocked about 

That freshman class of one." 

The two acts are the foundation of all subsequent legislation 
establishing free schools everywhere. They contained the germ 
of our present system. They required compulsory education for 
all children and compelled municipalities to establish schools main- 
tained at public expense, so that their requirements could be ful- 
filled. In 1683, it was ordered that in all towns of five hundred 
householders a grammar school, that is a school of the rank of our 
high schools, and two writing schools or primary schools as we 
should term them now, should be maintained. This seems to have 
been in advance of the age, for when the Province was formed this 
statute was not re-enacted. 

What the population of either Colony was at any time previous 
to 1647 I have been unable to ascertain with any degree of exact- 
ness. Bancroft estimates the population of the Plymouth Colony 
in 1675, about the time of King Philip's war, at seven thousand, 
and the Massachusetts Colony at twenty-two thousand. As the 




HO.MK OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 




OK. lOKS KE.SIUENXE. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 1^ 

increase had been quite rapid it must have been considerably less 
twenty-five years earlier. 

Upon the formation of the Province the system of public schools 
established by the Massachusetts Colony was continued. Among 
the earliest of the Provincial Acts was the substantial re-enact- 
ment of the two colonial statutes above referred to, except in place 
of the provision requiring a master in the grammar schools who 
could fit pupils for the University, was a provision " that some dis- 
creet person of good conversation, well instructed in the tongues " 
should be " procured to keep such school," and providing a pen- 
alty to be paid by every town that should neglect to comply with 
these requirements. Let us hope that the teachers of that day 
who were " well instructed in the tongues " were not like some 
instructors of modern times who seem to think that the great mas- 
terpieces of Greek and of Roman literature were only composed to 
illustrate the rules of grammar. 

The same policy was pursued when the Province became a 
State by incorporating the principle of free education for all chil- 
dren into the organic law. The Constitution makes it *♦ the duty 
of the legislature in all future periods of the Commonwealth to 
cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all semin- 
aries of them, especially the University at Cambridge, public 
schools and grammar schools in the towns." 

It would be instructive, if time would permit, to trace in detail 
the evolution and growth of the school system, in the States com- 
prising New England, through their various legal enactments. A 
very rapid and imperfect sketch of some of the more important 
statutes of Massachusetts must suffice. Statutes upon all sub- 
jects have been so numerous of late years that with an honest 
desire to comply with them we almost walk amid their snares and 
pitfalls, but still a study of the acts passed by any legislative body 
is instructive as exhibiting the subjects toward which for the time 
being men's minds are turning, or which denote new conditions 
demanding legislation, or some moral awakening. Who would not 
know from the acts of the last few years in this Commonwealth 
that questions relating to labor and kindred subjects were upper- 
most in public attention, or that a public supply of water was 
not demanded generally by municipalities, or that the use of 



iO MEt)WAV, MAsSACHUSEtTS 

intoxicating liquors was not receiving consideration ? The many 
acts that were passed relating to schools are evidence that the sys- 
tem was in a growing state, that new conditions were arising, and 
that the design was to bring them to a high point of excellence. 

There appears to have been in the beginning two objects which 
the legislators sought to obtain, and the same general theory has 
since been pursued. The first was to provide for a diffused 
primary education for all the children ; the second was to secure 
a more advanced education for them in those towns where the 
population was large enough to supply a sufficient number of 
pupils who sought such an advantage, to make the maintenance 
of the higher grades of schools possible without increasing the 
expense of each individual scholar to such an extent as to be 
prohibitive. 

These laws, however, were not well enforced. This is more 
especially true for some years after the beginning of the last 
century. Common schools were established in all the towns, but 
strict compliance with the statute relating to the length of the 
terms and the maintaining of grammar or high schools in munici- 
palities where the law required them, received but little consider- 
ation for many years. 

It is but a short time since any school, beyond the grade where 
the elementary branches were taught, became generally estab- 
lished in towns in which the population was sufficient to require a 
higher grade. 

This is true notwithstanding the statute had for a long time 
required every town containing five hundred families, which means 
about twenty-five hundred inhabitants, to maintain a school to be 
kept by a " master of competent ability and good morals, who 
should give instruction in general history, bookkeeping, surveying, 
geometry, natural philosophy, chemistry, botany, the civil polity 
of the Commonwealth and of the United States, and the Latin 
language." 

Outside of municipalities containing a considerable population 
there were no public schools " to fit pupils for the University," 
and the teachers employed were not always " well instructed in 
the tongues." 

A few weeks since, a friend placed in my hands the records of 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 21 

one of the school districts in a neighboring town. The first 
entries were made in 18 14, and a fair idea can be gained of the 
schools of those early days by consulting these records. 

Two district school meetings were held each year, one in the 
spring and the other in the autumn. At the spring meeting a 
vote was passed to have a " woman's school " in the summer, and 
in the autumn the district voted to have a " man's school " in the 
winter. The meeting determined the length of each term, which 
was from four to eight weeks in summer and from six to eight 
weeks in winter. The " woman's school " usually commenced 
about the first of July, and the "man's school" early in De- 
cember. 

The salaries paid were not extravagant. Among the items of 
expenditure were such as these, ** paid eight dollars and seventeen 
cents in full for teaching our school seven weeks this summer." 
" Paid nine dollars and thirty-three cents in full for teaching our 
school eight weeks this summer." " Paid twenty-four dollars in 
full for teaching our school two months this winter." The teach- 
ers probably received their board in addition, and the price to be 
paid for the purpose was evidently determined by auction, for I 
find such entries as this, " paid five dollars and eighty-four cents 
in full for boarding our school master eight weeks the winter last 
past at 73 cents a week." At other times there was paid for board 
ninety-one cents, ninety-five cents, and sometimes as much as one 
dollar and a quarter a week. At an earlier period the teacher 
" boarded round," and that practice continued in some places to a 
time considerably later than the beginning of these records. 

In 1789, the previous acts relating to schools were codified and 
amended. Under that statute, in a town of fifty families or house- 
holders, one school was to be kept an equivalent of six months in 
each year, in a town of a hundred families an equivalent of twelve 
months in each year. A teacher of those schools was required to 
teach children to read and write and to instruct them in the Eng- 
lish language, as well as in arithmetic, orthography, and ♦* decent 
behavior." In towns of one hundred and fifty families a school 
was to be kept an equivalent of six months, and in addition a 
school to instruct children in the English language an equivalent 
of twelve months in each year. Towns of two hundred families 



22 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

were to provide a schoolmaster or schoolmasters well instructed in 
Latin and Greek, and in addition thereto to provide a schoolmaster 
or schoolmasters as above described to instruct children in the 
English language for such term of time as shall be equivalent to 
twelve months for each of said schools in each year. No person 
could be employed as schoolmaster in the grammar school " unless 
he shall have received an education at some College or Univer- 
sity," or unless the person employed " shall produce a certificate 
from some minister well skilled in the Greek and Latin lan- 
guages " settled in the town or "two other ministers in the vicin- 
ity." In schools of a lower grade the teacher was to obtain a 
certificate from the selectmen, or the committee appointed by 
such towns, as well as from the ministers settled therein. 

The same statute for the first time provided for dividing towns 
into school districts and determining and defining their limits. It 
also provided for the holding of district meetings and the election 
of district officers, among them being a prudential committee 
whose duty it was to hire the teachers and have charge of the 
school property. It was very common and perhaps the universal 
custom, before the creation of school districts, for towns in town 
meetings to make their contracts directly with the teachers. The 
statute also imposed a penalty upon towns neglecting to comply 
with its provisions. 

In 1826, former statutes were repealed and a new and extended 
school act was passed, which was afterwards amended at different 
times. The general provision in this statute and its amendments 
were that only schools of the ordinary grade were required in 
towns of less than five hundred families, and in those of five 
hundred families schools should be maintained for teaching, in 
addition to the branches mentioned in the statute of 1789, history 
of the United States, bookkeeping, surveying, geometry, and 
algebra, and in towns containing four thousand inhabitants, Latin 
and Greek languages, general history, rhetoric and logic. These 
provisions continued in substance till 1859. After that date vari- 
ous changes were made, such as requiring towns to maintain a 
sufficient number of schools for all children, without designating 
the number of families in the town, and permitting towns to 
abolish school districts. 



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OLD HOME DAY, 1904 23 

The statute of 1826 for the first time made it compulsory upon 
towns to elect town committees to have general supervision of the 
schools, to visit them and to examine the qualifications of and 
grant certificates to the teachers. 

In 1 800, districts were authorized to raise money to erect school- 
houses and keep them in repair. This is the first statute in 
Massachusetts permitting them to be built at public expense. 
The reason for this statute probably was that the powers of towns 
had not been clearly defined. Numerous votes can be found 
passed by towns relating to building schoolhouses before this 
time. But in some towns schools were kept in private residences 
or in rude structures voluntarily built. The theory of govern- 
ment was then, and is now, that all the powers that towns pos- 
sessed were derived from the Commonwealth, and, as no law had 
been passed specifically authorizing the appropriation of money to 
build schoolhouses, it was probably deemed best to give towns 
that power by legislation. 

In 1866, school districts were abolished throughout the State. 
In 1870, an act was passed authorizing towns to re-establish them, 
requiring, however, a two-thirds vote for that purpose, but I am 
not aware that they exist today in any town in the Commonwealth. 

The more recent statutes are too familiar to require reference. 
The studies in the schools have been extended and now it would 
be a very indifferent scholar who, upon leaving our public schools, 
did not have some knowledge of sciences that were entirely 
unknown to the best educated person two centuries ago. The 
time, to a greater extent than ever before, demands men trained 
to the highest expression of their powers. Education will not 
create what does not exist, but through it the ordinary man is 
enabled to develop his capacity to its fullest extent. The State has 
done much. It has instituted, for general supervision over schools, 
a State Board of Education, of which Horace Mann, a native of 
the neighboring town of Franklin, and for several years a practic- 
ing lawyer in this county, was for some time secretary. Probably 
popular education owes more to him than to any single individual. 
The State has established Normal Schools for training teachers, 
and schools of various other kinds to meet every educational 
want. 



24 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

Children have not changed. The school boy with his " shining 
morning face " still " creeps like snail unwilling to school," but the 
methods of imparting instruction have developed into more scien- 
tific methods. The text books are better, but no book however 
perfected can supply the place of the living voice of the true 
teacher. The means of securing obedience are much less severe. 
There was some truth in what a boy of " ye olden time " said that 
the birch branch was the chief branch taught in his school. But 
that branch has fallen into disuse, though still a sceptre of author- 
ity. It is not, however, employed so much as formerly as an 
incentive to urge the tardy loiterers along the flowery paths of 
knowledge. 

New England would not be entitled to the credit that now 
belongs to her if the colonies in what are now the Middle and the 
Southern States had provided for public instruction as early in 
their settlements. New York was established thirteen years 
before Plymouth, but no attempt was made there or, indeed, in any 
of the Middle States or in the territory now comprising those 
States, to institute a system of schools to be maintained at the 
public expense until after the Revolutionary War, nearly a century 
and a half later than they were introduced into the Massachusetts 
Colony. On the other hand, when that war opened every school 
in the Commonwealth, except one, was founded and supported at 
the public charge. The South was still farther behind, for not 
until after the Rebellion were the public schools founded in every 
part of that section. Free schools and African slavery could not 
flourish together. They were antagonistic and incompatible with 
each other. The difference in sentiment between New England 
and the South in colonial days is illustrated by the replies of the 
governors of Virginia and Connecticut to an inquiry regarding the 
progress of education in those settlements made by the English 
Commissioners of Foreign Plantations. The former said " I 
thank God there are no free schools or printing presses " in 
Virginia, " and I hope we shall not have any these hundred years." 
The latter replied, ♦* One-fourth of the annual revenue of the 
colony (Connecticut) is laid out in maintaining free schools for the 
education of our children." 

Today, so much has the influence of New England spread that 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 25 

public schools exist in every state and territory of the Union. 
More than fourteen and a half million of children in the United 
States attend them. Above four hundred thousand teachers are 
employed, and their annual maintenance exceeds one hundred and 
seventy millions of dollars. They are our most cherished institu- 
tions, and are guarded with jealous care. They are sustained by 
the settled conviction of every class in society and of all political 
parties. Money is freely voted to sustain them, and houses arc 
erected for them with lavish munificence. The government itself 
could be overthrown and create less disturbance than would follow 
an attempt to destroy them. They are the foundation of our 
liberties, and part of our organic existence as a nation. They 
belong to freedom as ignorance belongs to barbarism and slavery. 
Now let us consider another product, the seeds of which were 
sown by the same men who established public schools. The town 
is distinctively a New England institution. It is the nearest 
approach to pure democracy the world has seen, and nowhere else 
exists in the same perfection. It has received the praises and 
commendations of jurists, historians, statesmen and philosophers 
alike. In confirmation of this statement let me cite the opinions of 
three prominent men of different nationalities, who, from training, 
observation and research, were competent to give an. opinion, all 
of whom were familiar with our institutions. De Toqueville said 
that •' Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of 
free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary 
schools are to science ; they bring it within the people's reach ; 
they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may 
establish a free government, but without the spirit of municipal 
institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty." James Bryce 
asserts that " the town meeting has been not only the source but 
the school of democracy." Thomas Jeiferson declared that ** those 
wards called townships in New England are the vital principles of 
their government, and have proved themselves the wisest inven- 
tion ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of 
self-government and for its preservation." 

In New England the town is the unit of government. Therein 
it differs from the general system prevailing in the Middle and 
Southern States, where the county is the unit, and towns or 



26 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

townships, as they are more often called, are to the county some- 
thing as the old school district was to the town ; or perhaps a 
better illustration would be as the counties in Massachusetts are 
to the State. These are the two distinctive systems upon one or 
the other of which the political structure of all the States has been 
built, although, in some western States, where early immigration 
was partly from New England and partly from other sections, 
there is a combination of the two systems. Still, there is no 
State in the Union in which the New England principle of town 
government does not have more or less influence. Towns, as 
they exist in New England, are similar both in their origin and 
in their relation to the State. I am, therefore, justified in speak- 
ing more particularly of our own Commonwealth. 

Correctly speaking the State of Massachusetts is the tract of 
land known by that name. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
is the name given in the Constitution to the political creation or 
body politic exercising authority upon the inhabitants, corpora- 
tions and property residing or being within that territory. To 
make an efficient political organization, the authority of any gov- 
ernment must bear directly upon each individual member of that 
government. This is precisely what must be done in every 
permanent political organization. 

Wc have an illustration of this in our own history. An attempt 
was made in 1777 to organize the several States into a govern- 
ment under " Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union." 
It proved a failure, and why ? One of the chief reasons was that 
instead of making its laws operative upon each individual, it under- 
took to operate through the States. In raising money, for in- 
stance, it made a requisition upon the States. Each was relied 
upon to furnish its share of what the Confederation might need. 

Now the power of taxation is the underlying principle upon 
which all governments rest. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive 
of one existing without it. It is the most fundamental of all 
attributes of sovereignty. If a State refused, there was no way 
to compel it to bear its share of the public burden, except by the 
exercise of force against it. That meant war between the State 
and the government. On the other hand, the government, formed 
under the Constitution of 1789, acts directly upon each individual 




EMMONS IDE. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 2/ 

in the United States. The raising of nearly six billion dollars, 
which the Rebellion cost the Union in the prosecution of that 
war, was made possible by this principle, and would have been 
impossible without it. This theory is expressly recognized in the 
Constitution of Massachusetts, which declares, " the body politic 
is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with 
each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall 
be governed by certain laws for the common good." 

The written constitution is another institution that germinated 
in New England. The first known in history that created a gov- 
ernment was adopted by the Connecticut Colony in 1639. There 
have been other instruments defining and securing people's rights, 
like the Magna Charta, the Compact on board the Mayflower, and 
the Body of Liberties in the Massachusetts Colony in 1641 ; but 
that in Connecticut was the first to declare in written form the 
principles upon which the Government was to rest, and to provide 
for its practical operation. This precedent has been universally 
followed until now the United States, and every State and terri- 
tory in the Union, exist under written constitutions, and it is a 
little curious to note that the Constitution of the United States is 
shorter than that of any State or territory. Generally speaking, 
the constitutions of those States more recently admitted are 
the longest and most elaborate. 

It is well occasionally to refer to the organic law, although I 
have sometimes thought that the reply of the schoolboy, who, 
according to Mark Twain, when the question was put to him by 
his teacher, *' What is the Constitution of the United States " ? 
answered, " Those printed pages in the back part of the book 
which nobody ever reads," had a certain element of truth in it. 

Although in theory towns derive their powers from the Com- 
monwealth, yet in fact they made the Commonwealth, and were in 
existence a hundred and fifty years before the Constitution was 
adopted. That instrument assumes their existence, but gives no 
information as to what powers they possessed, what officers they 
are required to elect, although it provides that selectmen shall 
preside at certain meetings, or even for their incorporation, except 
an amendment provides for the incorporation of towns into cities. 
It refers to them in connection with State elections and religious 



28 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

worship by an article which was subsequently modified and 
amended. Still they are as much of an institution, and are as 
thoroughly a part of our system of government, as they could be 
made by any constitutional provision. 

At first they were mere collections of dwelling houses situated 
near together, and became towns without any formal act of 
legislation. In 1785, for the first time, it was enacted that "the 
inhabitants of every town within this government are hereby 
declared to be a body politic and corporate," and that act is now 
in force ; but when it was passed it only declared what the law 
had been before. Not only was there no acts of incorporation, 
but the inhabitants gave whatever names they pleased to their 
settlements, and, as might be expected, chose old English names 
which were familiar to their ears and suggestive of their old 
homes. Accordingly we find Plymouth, Dorchester, Boston, 
Wrcntham, Gloucester, and the like. Afterwards towns were 
incorporated by formal act of the legislature, and there was a 
period in Provincial times when the royal governors selected the 
names for the towns so incorporated. These officials at first 
named the new towns after living English statesmen, or those 
holding public office, and we find Mansfield, Walpole, Shelburne, 
Halifax, Grafton, and many others. Then the governors began 
naming them after their predecessors in office, and we recognize 
that in Bellingham, Dudley, Belchertown, Shutesbury, Sherley, 
and a number more, both in this State and in Maine, the names 
of provincial governors whose fame is thus perpetuated to 
posterity. 

The royal governors, towards the end of the existence of the 
Province, were not favorable to incorporating towns, for each 
town had at least one representative in the Great and General 
Court, as the legislative body was called in the charter. 
That body was a thorn in the side of the representatives of 
George III. They could neither frighten nor cajole it, but they 
could prevent it from increasing its members. They therefore 
in numerous instances permitted the establishment of precincts, 
which had certain powers, but which had no representative in the 
Legislature. These subsequently became towns under a general 
act. But General Gage, June 5, 1774, near the end of the last 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 29 

General Court ever held under a royal governor, permitted the 
incorporation of a town, which he named after his immediate pre- 
decessor, Hutchinson. In 1776, fourteen towns whose names 
had been designated by royal governors, petitioned for a change. 
Only one was acted on, — Hutchinson was changed to Barre in 
honor of the gallant colonel who so bravely defended the colonists 
in the English House of Commons. 

Towns, through their meetings, were an almost indispensable 
means of promoting the Revolution. The inhabitants could be 
easily summoned to a common place of gathering, and they had 
been accustomed to act together. Moreover they had been 
trained to consider public questions. This is as essentially nec- 
essary to a self-governing people as it is to have the power of self- 
government. Public opinion when organized is omnipotent. None 
understood this better than the leaders of the Revolution. They 
had ready means, through the town meetings, to create such an 
organization, and they knew how to make that organization 
effective. 

The Suffolk Resolves, for instance, which were written by 
General Warren, were sent to the several towns. They declared 
that " no obedience was due to the recent acts of parliament," and 
" went further," a recent English historian asserts, '♦ in defiance 
of British authority than any formal or authorized declaration had 
yet done." Their influence upon the events that led up to the 
Revolution is incalculable, and they owe their importance almost 
entirely to the action of the towns in adopting them. 

A history of more than two centuries and a half has proved 
that town government meets the public necessities better and 
more economically than any other form. Their business is done 
in primary assemblies by the voters in town meetings. There the 
appropriations are made and officers elected. The affairs of these 
municipalities are conducted on the whole in a satisfactory man- 
ner. There is less embezzlement and mismanagement among 
town officials than in the same number of officers and agents in 
banks, or in mercantile, manufacturing and transportation corpo- 
rations which are under the direction of officers chosen by the 
stockholders. 



30 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

The plague spots in our country are the cities in which a differ- 
ent system prevails. In them the prudential affairs and executive 
duties are performed by officers with whom too frequently 

" The jingle of the guineas 

Heals the hurt that honor feels ; " 

and in some of them it does not require a very pronounced pessi- 
mist to imagine that they are but a few degrees from moral 
disaster. 

If some means could be devised so that the town system could 
be applied, would not the question of municipal government for 
cities be solved ? 

You say to me " You have related when and where the system 
of public instruction began, you have told us something concern- 
ing the origin of towns, but what have these to do with the * Debt 
the Country Owes New England ? ' " Is it from these sources," 
you ask, " that the mighty energy has sprung that has developed 
the material resources of this continent ? Are the inventions and 
discoveries which have added to the necessities, the comfort, and 
the convenience of the people, and brought luxurious wealth in 
their train, traceable to the influence of these institutions alone ? " 
By no means. We cannot calculate percentages in determining 
the importance of these New England institutions and say how 
much of the progress that has been made in every direction of 
human activity during the last century has been due to them, how 
much to native force, how much to necessity or other causes, any 
more than you can measure the importance to the world of a 
Homer or a Shakespeare, or prepare tables to indicate the influ- 
ence of the ten commandments. We know that public school and 
town government had their beginning in New England. We 
know that the mammoth undertakings of private enterprise, the 
great lines of transportation, the wonderful means of communica- 
tion that have almost annihilated time and space, and the thou- 
sand beneficial inventions that the present age enjoys, owe their 
existence in this country almost entirely to men born and bred 
where the influence of these institutions are the strongest. 

But we need not stop at material prosperity or personal com- 
fort. " Is not life more than meat or body than raiment ? " 




BIRTHPLACK OF WILLIAM T. ADAMS (OLIVER OPTIC). 

KORN 1822, DIED 1897. 

Wrote over lUO volumes, over 1,'«kmw copies sold. Scl.oolniaster in Boston. 



OLD HOME DAY, I904 3t 

When the war for independence began, public schools had 
existed in New England for more than a hundred and twenty-five 
years, and towns from the first settlement of the country. In the 
South, town governments were unknown and public schools con- 
temned. The ranks of the American army in that war were filled 
by volunteers alone. There was no law or power to enforce 
compulsory enlistments. Is there no connection between these 
institutions and the fact that Massachusetts, with about one-fourth 
as large a population, furnished more soldiers in the Revolution 
than all the Southern States together ? «' The bones of her sons 
falling in the great struggle for liberty," said Webster, "now 
lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to 
Georgia, and there they will remain forever." Was it an accident 
that the first blood of the Revolution was shed by Massachusetts 
men at Lexington, and the first blood of the Rebellion by Massa- 
chusetts men at Baltimore ? 

The " Debt the Country Owes New England " is traced in 
every step of our history. Her influence has not been confined 
to people living within her geographical limits, for the West has 
been largely settled by emigrants from New England having the 
same invincible courage, endurance and faith as their fathers, and 
who carried and planted in their new homes the same institutions 
with which they had become familiar, and under which they had 
been nourished. These settlers and their descendants have min- 
gled with emigrants from other States and countries, and there 
has sprung up all over that vast section a people of heroic fibre 
and tireless energy. 

Enterprise and industry, joined with economic growth and 
industrial development, have produced great wealth, but this in 
itself is a blessing not an evil. Besides, there still exists, I 
believe, in the people generally throughout our land, a deeper and 
grander principle than is satisfied by the mere accumulation of 
property, and which, if occasion demands, will, in time to come, 
as in the past, express itself in a way not to be misunderstood, 
and that is a strong, intelligent, patriotic devotion to their country, 
characteristics found only in men of honest, upright, robust 
characters. We had an illustration of this in the secession move- 
ment of 1 86 1. Think of nearly three million volunteers willing 



32 MEDWAV, MASSACHUSETTS 

to risk their lives to maintain the unity of the government, then 
doubt of the future if you can ! In other nations men flee 
from their homes to escape service in the army, here they rushed 
to the war as to a feast, and the names of three thousand three 
hundred and fifty-one battles of the Rebellion that are inscribed 
upon the Union banners attest the magnitude of their services 
and the sincerity of their convictions. 

Notwithstanding the obstacles that may arise in our pathway, 
it seems to me that the sentiments of one of New England's 
greatest sons was never more appropriate than now. 

*' Advance, then, ye future generation. We bid you welcome 
to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the 
healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We 
greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have 
enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government 
and religious liberty. We welcome you to the pleasures of 
science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the 
transcendent sweets of domestic life, the happiness of kindred 
and parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasureable 
blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, 
and the light of everlasting truth." 



/■r-t^ 




OLD HOME DAY, 1904 33 

H6 Me Buil^. 



The masons were building the granite wall 
Round the beautiful church on the green ; 

They hammered and chiseled the stones inch by inch, 
And laid them with mortar between. 

They made the foundations both strong and deep, 

And leveled with plummet and line ; 
And carefully wrought that no flaw might appear 

To sully the perfect design. 

And when the last beautiful crowning stones 

Were laid, and the work was done, 
Complete and strong and perfect it stood, 

A lesson for every one. 

A lesson of daily human life : 

We build, though we may not see, 
For Time and Eternity, day by day, 

The character that shall be. 

Each little word, or thought, or deed 

Is clipped by the chisel we wield ; 
Each loving plan for another's good 

Is wrought in the life we build. 

If honor and truth are the tendrils which hold 

The purpose when life is new; 
And conscience and faith on the granite have set 

Their seals of a life pure and true. 

Then the years, as they roll with their changes, will bring 

A manhood both fearless and strong ; 
The power and the will to stand fast for the right, 

And firmly to stand against wrong. 

And the sure reward of a faithful life, 

The great Master Builder will own. 
When, our tasks " well done," to us shall be given 

The victor's fadeless crown. 




REV. JACOB IDE, D. D. 




DEDICATORY ADDRESS AT THE IDE MONUMENT 
AT WEST MEDWAY, MASS., AUGUST THIRD, 1904 
BY THE REV. R. K. HARLOW OF MEDWAY, MASS. 



Mr. Preside7it and Friends : 

^ODAY is a time for congratulations. A long neg- 
lected obligation to one of Medway's most deserving 
citizens of the last generation has been discharged. 
Twenty-four years after his death a monument has 
been set up to the memory of the Rev. Jacob Ide, 
D. D., who for sixty-five years held a pastoral relation to the 
Second Congregational Church in this town.* 

The reason for this delay has been variously explained. Of late 
the chief reason was the lack of some one to inaugurate the move- 
ment. If I may be allowed a personal expression, let me say that 
I feel a sense of relief, such as I imagine one enjoys who has 
lifted a long-standing mortgage that has been a sort of nightmare, 
disturbing his peace by day and his sleep by night. For a long 
time I have felt a personal obligation in this matter. By the 
death of Dr. Ide's son, Jacob, I took his place as the longest 
settled pastor in the Mendon Conference ; I was, at that time, the 
only minister in this body who knew Dr. Ide personally. The 
church I served for twenty-seven years was the only child of Dr. 
Ide's church ; I knew how unselfishly he had relinquished the 
village constituency to form a new church in a growing and 
prosperous section of the town. Then, in addition, the Rev. 
David Sanford, my only predecessor in the village church, was 
Dr. Ide's nearest ministerial neighbor of his faith and order, and 
his sincerest friend. Under these conditions, I often determined 
with myself that I would start a movement in the town or con- 
ference to take away our reproach. 

While I was musing, the fire burned, but it broke out in a very 
unexpected quarter. The Medway Historical Society, an organi- 

*NoTE. — Fifty-one years active pastor, fourteen years pastor emeritus. 



36 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

zation started by some of our progressive young men of antiqua- 
rian tastes, with a purpose to rescue and pass on to posterity relics 
that grow richer as they age, was sagacious enough to see an 
opportunity for starting a movement that would bring the young 
society into popular notice and favor. A monument for Dr. Ide ! 
That was a rallying cry to which both obligation and sentiment 
would respond. I do not mean to imply that self-interest was the 
primary or chief motive of the Society in its action. I am willing 
to credit something to sentiment — much to a sense of the fitness 
of things — and to believe that the knowledge that the grave of a 
man so well deserving had remained unmarked twenty-three years 
appealed to their young manhood, and led them to undertake a 
work so well befitting the aims and intentions of their organization. 
If the Society never does anything else, it has done enough in 
starting this movement to justify its existence. The Society recog- 
nized the propriety of enlisting the co-operation of the Mendon 
Conference of Churches, and, at a subsequent meeting of that body, 
a committee was chosen to co-operate with a similar committee 
from the Historical Society. I had the honor to be chairman of 
the Conference Committee. It was suggested later that I prepare 
a sermon and present the object in the churches. Three of them, 
viz., West Medway, Milford, and Mansfield, perhaps from an 
innate horror of the visitation of agents, promptly took up generous 
contributions. The response of the other churches that I visited 
was so cordial, that I began to question whether it had not been 
fore-ordained from all eternity that I should be the financial 
secretary of some Congregational Missionary Society, or, at least, 
a life insurance or book agent, and thus be fat and flourishing, 
and still bring forth fruit in old age. Allow me to say that what 
I have done in furtherance of this object has been most cordially 
performed as my tribute to Dr. and Mrs. Ide. The Joint Com- 
mittee prepared a circular describing the project, which was sent 
far and wide, and met a generous response. 

Some unexpected favors came to us that seemed like special 
providences. Owing to the partition of the Ide burial lot, it was 
deemed necessary to procure a larger and more central lot, to 
which the remains of the family could be removed, and a monu- 
ment erected, where there would be no embarrassment from joint 






1785— JACOB IDE — ISSOJM 

30 PASTOR OF THE 20 CONGL Sw^ 

CHURCH MEDWAY I6W TO 1885 ff'?' 

PASTOR CMERITUS 186S TO ISeO ^%* 

A SKILLED THEOLOGIAN ^^ 

A CONVINCING PREACHER jSb 

A MODEL PASTOR ^3k 

A DISCREET ADVISER 3^| 

A ZEALOUS PrONEER OF ^Wx 

TEMPERANCE AND ABOLITION t^ 

TRAINED 43 STUDENTS FOR THE 

MINISTRY ON SCHOOL C OM 30YRS 

1790- MARY EMMONS-1880 

1815 — HIS WIFE — 1880 

DAU OF 

NATHL EMMONS D D 

A RARE HELPMATE. 







THE REV. JAC015 IDE MEMORIAL. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 37 

ownership. The heirs of the late Joseph D. Leland, of Boston, 
who, with his wife, were formerly members of Dr. Ide's church, 
and his personal friends, solved the problem by deeding the 
vacated Leland lot, with its hammered granite boundary posts and 
steps, to the Medway Historical Society, 

Another family of Dr. Ide's parishioners and members of his 
church, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Bullard, who still survive, is 
pleasantly connected with this movement through the generosity 
of their son, Mr. George P. Bullard, of Newton, Mass., who has 
donated one hundred dollars for perpetual care of the lot and 
monument. Thus the children, in honoring the venerable pastor 
of their parents, honor their father and mother also. 

The next problem of the committee was as to the form of the 
memorial. At first a rough native boulder was considered, but 
the size and sightliness of the donated lot demanded something 
more colossal and conspicuous. A similitude of an old-time pulpit 
in undressed granite was agreed upon. It is little more than a 
suggestion, but that is better than a conventional show piece of 
the stone cutter's skill in turning scroll work and tracing granite 
vines and flowers. 

The monument is unique — like the man it memorializes. It 
stands for something. Its stability suggests the old-time life 
pastorate. Its proportions, tall and wide, represent the dignity 
and propriety of the old-time clergyman. Its ruggedness and 
inflexibility suit well to the characteristics of the old-time theology. 
As it stands empty, it speaks of the pathos of the breaking up of 
a long pastorate. The front panel bears the name of Dr. Idc and 
his worthy wife, with some characteristics. The back panel gives 
a catalogue of their children. It reaches from the top of the 
pulpit down to the platform, eleven all told — a granite indictment 
against race suicide. 

The hardest task of the committee was to prepare an inscription 
to be cut in the granite setting forth some of the prominent char- 
acteristics of Dr. Ide. The strokes must be few, but revealing. 
How well we succeeded we leave you to judge. 

What I shall say further will be in elaboration of these epigrams. 
The committee has saved me and you from the statistical part of 
Dr. Ide's biography by printing these as a prelude to this 
dedicatory service. 



38 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

A SKILLED THEOLOGIAN. 

The times preceding the birth of Dr. Ide, and during his 
ministry, may be called the age of positive theology. In our days 
of easy-going, shirt-waist theology it is difficult for us to under- 
stand why the fathers were so strenuous as to the exact fit of the 
theological straight-jacket, and why such battles were fought over 
the number of gores and biases it should show. 

Then the downright positiveness with which some of these old- 
time preachers declared just what God could and could not do, 
would and would not do, as if they were confidential secretaries of 
the Almighty, amazes us. In reading some of the deliverances of 
these men, which they are certain are correct likenesses of 
Jehovah, one is reminded of the story of a little girl, who was 
making a drawing on paper. Her mother asked her what she was 
doing ; " I am making a picture of God." " But, my child, no one 
knows how God looks." "They will know when they see this 
picture." Out of the unconscious mouths of babes and sucklings 
cartoonists of God are rebuked. Jacob Ide was not by nature or 
training one of these. 

In his fiftieth anniversary sermon we read : " It is proper to 
say here that this church and people have, from the beginning, 
been taught, and they have believed, the doctrines usually termed 
Calvinistic. They have been in the habit of recognizing the 
Assembly's Catechism as a good epitome of Christian doctrine, 
and the Cambridge platform as among the best systems of disci- 
pline within their knowledge, though they have not been prepared 
to adopts without qualification, all the language or every thought 
contained in these formulas." 

Their minister took the liberty of modifying the standards so 
as to make them defensible by the reason, and taught them to do 
the same. He was like a skillful builder, who, having come into 
possession of a line of timber forts that have done service in war- 
fare on the debatable ground of hostile camps, culls out the 
soundest of the timber, and, by hewing and sawing, constructs an 
ample and comfortable dwelling for his household. One who 
knew Dr. Ide, says : " His theology was of that clear, logical type 
called New England, or modified Galvanism. He sympathized 
fully with Dr. Park in his controversy with Princeton, and held 





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KEVIiKSli OF THE REV. JACOH IDE MEMORIAL. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 39 

with the Hopkinsians in their emphasis on disinterested benevo- 
lence and submission to Divine decrees." 

Dr. Park bore this testimony at the Ide fiftieth anniversary : 

" He has framed his creed with great carefulness. He has 
weighed and balanced his words. This venerable pastor has 
explained the doctrines so that he could preach them without 
reserve. He has made out such a system of theology that no part 
of it needs to be hidden from the people. His theology is fit to 
be preached, and he has preached it." 

Dr. A, L. Stone, on the same occasion, said : " His ministry 
has been an instructive one, and in advance of the age. He has 
lived to see the times come up to him." 

The fact that the trustees of the Theological Seminary in 
Bangor elected Dr. Ide to a professorship of theology and pastoral 
duties, and the reluctance with which, after repeated overtures, 
they acquiesced in his final declination, shows the popular estimate 
of him as a theologian and a possible seminary professor. The 
persistence with which young men came to his house for theo- 
logical training, and stayed, against his advice and inclination, 
until the total reached forty-three, suggests the inference that it 
was decreed that he should be a theological professor. There is 
this additional confirmatory fact : In his early ministry there were 
five young men, graduates of Brown University, settled in this 
vicinity. One of them says : " We formed, for our mutual improve- 
ment, a sub-association, held monthly meetings, and in the course 
of five years went through a system of divinity. Dr. Ide was the 
best theologian of our number, and was in reality our teacher." 
Brown University conferred on him the merited title of D. D. 

. A CONVINCING PREACHER. 

Theron Metcalf, Esq., Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court of 
Massachusetts, once said of Dr. Emmons' preaching : " If you 
admith is premises, all hell can't get away from his conclusions." 
From what I have read of Dr. Ide's sermons, and from what others 
competent to judge have told me, the same remark might apply to 
the preaching of Dr. Emmons' son-in-law. 

One parishioner testifies : " I have heard Dr. Ide preach on 
election and predestination, and reconcile man's free-agency with 



40 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

God's sovereignty in a satisfactory and convincing manner." 
Among students who heard him in his later ministry (who are 
now ministers), one says : " He was not an eloquent preacher, as 
we should define the word, but he was always effective in the 
pulpit. His style was like his thought — plain, direct and luminous. 
I think he must have always claimed and held his hearers atten- 
tion by these qualities. His deportment in public ministrations 
was dignified and commanding." Another says : ** He was logical 
rather than illustrative. During the civil war his extemporaneous 
utterances, on the Sunday after a battle, did not lack in vigor. 
He certainly was a keen and ready debater, even as an old man, 
and spoke as one who had mastered his subject." 

An aged man told me that he used to go, as a boy of fifteen, 
from North Bellingham to hear Dr. Ide every Sunday. I said, 
"Could you understand his sermons.^" " Understand them ! I 
guess I could ! " Another hearer says : " He had the galleries 
full of young men. In all weathers, from miles around, the farmers 
came and stayed all day to hear him preach." Prof. Park, when a 
student, taught school somewhere in this vicinage. One Sunday 
he went to hear Dr. Ide preach. He remembered this about the 
sermon, which was on Sabbath breaking, one form of which, the 
preacher said, was in " gadding about to hear other ministers than 
your own." Rev. S. J. Horton, late principal of the Episcopal 
Academy of Connecticut, said : " My first acquaintance with him 
was when I was a lad of fifteen, and he was in his prime. His 
strong and sanctified intellect leading him to grasp with a giant's 
strength, great and sublime truths, his power of analysis and illus- 
tration, his sincerity, boldness and zeal in proclaiming the Gospel 
message, all have had an abiding influence upon me." A boy- 
hood parishioner, who spent some time in his youth in the Ide 
family, relates this incident, showing the doctor's courage in 
declaring his convictions. One Sabbath he preached on a theme 
against the protests of some of his leading men. He used the 
same theme a second Sunday, and a third, with more protests, and 
ended by telling the people " there were men who would preach 
what they wanted to hear, they could be had for money, but he 
wasn't the man." 

It is evident, from the published and manuscript sermons of 




MARY ICMMONS lUE. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 41 

Dr. Idc, that he kept out of shallows ; never got lost in his own 
fog, or left the question among his hearers when he stopped — 
" Whatever was he driving at ? " I imagine this was so evident 
that some of them were as uncomfortable as they would have been 
in hair-cloth underwear. 

A MODEL PASTOR. 

We are speaking of a man whose active service ceased thirty- 
eight years ago. The living witnesses of his pastoral work are 
few, but I am sure they would endorse our characterization. If 
there were no survivors, certain historic facts give us data for an 
estimate. 

When Jacob Ide, at the age of twenty-nine, accepted a call to 
this church, the outlook was discouraging. There had been no 
pastoral service done here for nearly seven years. An entire 
generation had passed since any general revival interest had 
blessed the congregation, and nearly all the young men of that 
period had removed elsewhere. The membership was small, and 
made up mostly of people past middle life. Eighteen months 
before they had seriously considered the matter of disbanding and 
returning to the mother church, so discouraged had they become. 
Worst of all, the habit of absenteeism from public worship had 
grown up in the comrhunity. There was also considerable fac- 
tional feeling, because the location of the new meeting house, 
which had just been completed, after they had taken a new lease 
of life, had been changed. In addition, Mr. Ide was in such deli 
cate health that he did not expect to live a year. Evidently 
young Ide was not looking for a prominent, wealthy, envied 
parish. He was looking for an opportunity to be useful. He 
found it, and God honored his spirit of self-effacement. In the 
first two years of his pastorate, thirty-five persons were added to 
the church, all except three on confession, and all through his 
ministry similar results were manifest, the whole number in fifty 
years reaching 516. 

His schedule of a pastor's duties, outlined in his fiftieth anni- 
versary sermon, shows how exacting his ideal was. To know the 
wants of his own people, to learn the dangers to which they are 
exposed, to find the avenue to their hearts and consciences, and 



42 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

to select those portions of the Divine Word best adapted to their 
respective cases, and to present these at the time and in the 
manner best suited to win their souls to Christ, to sympathize 
with his people in all their joys and sorrows, to be ever at their 
call when they need his services, to bear them on his heart in all 
his approaches to the throne of grace, is a work in view of which 
an angel might quail." 

While he was a man of strong will and pronounced convictions, 
he so ruled his spirit that he was always self-poised, modest, cour- 
teous and patient. He was a minister for whom his people never 
had to apologize or make allowances, the force of whose preaching 
was never discounted by indiscretions or eccentricities in the 
pulpit or out of it. The following description of an English vicar 
fits him well : 

" Six feet he stood within his shoes. 
And every inch of all a man, 
Ecclesiast on the ancient plan, 
Unforced by any party rule 
His native character to school. 
He ne'er was bitter or unkind. 
But positively spoke his mind. 
Up for his church he stoutly stood ; 
No worldly aim had he in life 
To set him with himself at strife." 

A fact of special interest is his service for the children and 
youth. In the second year of his pastorate, at a time when 
Sunday Schools were rare, he organized this portion of his con- 
gregation into three classes for Biblical study. These he met 
once a month on the same day, the youngest (from 4 to lo years 
of age) at 10 a. m., those from 10 to 16 at 2 p. m., and the eldest 
in the evening. Thus in a single day more than one hundred 
young people met their pastor for religious instruction. This 
continued for about three years, when a Sunday School was 
formed. After such faithful seed-sowing, is it any marvel that a 
most sweeping revival visited the community in which a hundred 
persons professed conversion .-' In the two years succeeding this 
awakening, one hundred and five were added to the church. It 
may be fittingly mentioned here that ten young men from this 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 43 

parish entered the Christian ministry during Dr. Ide's pastorate, 
and two others were in preparation when he closed his ministry. 

A DISCREET ADVISER. 

A man of Dr. Ide's recognized common sense, breadth of 
vision, fairness of judgment, knowledge of human nature and 
Christian spirit, we can readily believe would be much in demand 
in individual and church difficulties as a judicious counselor. He 
came as near being a bishop for this region as our Congrega- 
tional polity allows ; not in the sense of being a dictator, but as an 
adviser in religious and other matters. The number of ecclesias- 
tical councils of which he formed an important part (175) indi- 
cates his position in pubHc esteem. Individuals have told me of 
his illuminating ministry when they were in religious doubt or 
difficulty. A younger minister after living in a neighboring town 
twenty-six years, bore this testimony : " When I came to this 
region and found in Dr. Ide an old friend of my father, I imme- 
diately experienced something like a filial regard, and was inclined 
to look up to him as a father, for that sympathy and counsel 
which at that time I so much needed. He has been like a pillar 
against which one could lean, and feel firm in his position." 

How many snarls he has helped untangle, how many belliger- 
ents he has quieted, how many gathering cyclones he has punc- 
tured and made invisible, he has not recorded, but we may be 
sure they were sufficient to entitle him to the beatitude, " Blessed 
are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." 

A ZEALOUS PIONEER OF TEMPERANCE AND ABOLITION. 

Dr. Ide in his fiftieth anniversary sermon, says : " At the time 
of my settlement, the drinking of intoxicating liquor was, here as 
in almost every other place in the country, nearly universal. It 
was customary at ordinations in the country to erect upon the 
common, near the church, or at some other convenient place, 
temporary stands for the sale of this article to accommodate the 
multitude that usually attended on such occasions. Understand- 
ing that such accommodations were expected here, I sent to the 
committee of arrangements and requested that no such thing 
should be allowed at the time and place of my ordination. My 



44 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

request was complied with. I tried also to prevent the provision 
of spirituous liquors for the council on that occasion, but this 
effort was a little too early for the time, and proved a failure." 
The elect, it seems, were harder to manage than the reprobate. 

It was a token of hospitality to treat the minister on his parish 
calls, and for him to refuse would have been thought an incivility. 
Dr. Ide, in his later days, told a close friend of the way he 
became awakened to the personal danger of this custom. He was 
out making parish calls on a cold day, and at every house was 
offered hot toddy. As a result, he said, " When I got home I 
found I was a little boozy." That experience made him ever 
thereafter a total abstainer. He found that while many deplored 
the evil effects of intoxication, it was quite generally thought an 
incurable evil. " In this state of things," he says, " I felt it a 
duty to preach upon the subject. In 1 8 1 8 I undertook to show 
the evil nature and effects of intemperance, also that the drunk- 
ard might be cured. The remedy was, to leave off drinking 
immediately and entirely. The sermon attracted much attention 
and comment, but it bore fruit." The doctor said that he had 
preached as many sermons on temperance as on any one subject 
of Christian morals on which he had spoken. He adds, as a 
result, " This people were the first in this vicinity to go heartily 
and in earnest into the temperance reform." It was largely 
through Dr. Ide's influence that the serving of liquor at the meet- 
ings of the Mendon Association was abolished. 

Dr. Ide was one of the pioneers in advocating the abolition of 
American slavery. He says : " I have from the first, both in 
private and in public, denounced American slavery as an out- 
rageous wrong, exposing us, as a people, to the displeasure of 
heaven." In 1844, in the annual meeting of the American 
Board of Missions, he presented a memorial (drawn up by the 
late Hon. M. M. Fisher) to that body, signed by himself and 
eighteen others, ministers and laymen, virtually asking the Board 
to declare that slavery is a crime against man, and a sin against 
God. The discussion that followed, in which Dr. Ide took a 
prominent part, awakened much interest among the pastors and 
laymen throughout the country, and gave great impetus to the 
rising anti-slavery sentiment. Thank God Dr. Ide lived to see 




ORdAN TRESENTED, A. I). I9OO, TO THE CHURCH AS A M.IVIORIAL FOR 
JOSEPH D. LELAND AND MARY l\ LELANU, BY THEIR CHILDREN. 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 45 

this great crime abolished, a result that cost him the loss of his 
youngest son, George, who was killed at the battle of Cedar 
Mountain, Va., 1862 ; also his son-in-law, Rev. Chas. T. Torrey, 
who died in prison in Baltimore, under sentence for abducting 
slaves. 

The championship of these reforms, so far in advance of popu- 
lar sentiment, indicates the moral courage of Dr. Ide. " Instead 
of going with the stream, he stemmed the torrent " — the sign 
manual of the hero. His advocacy of these movements was of 
the highest value in creating popular sentiment in their favor, for 
all who knew Dr. Ide agreed that he was no fanatic or crank, 
chasing a will-o'-the-wisp that would land him in a bog, with all 
those who followed him. 

Dr. Ide was a pioneer also in mission work, home and foreign. 
He says : " At Andover Seminary I was in the class of Mills 
and Richards and Warren, and was familiar with Judson and his 
associates. I went among the churches in the vicinity of 
Andover to solicit funds to fit out the first missionaries of the 
American Board." This early interest deepened throughout all 
his ministry, and the effect upon his people is seen in this state- 
ment : " The contributions for benevolence have steadily increased 
through the whole period of my pastorate." 

Of the forty-three students whom Dr. Ide trained wholly or in 
part for the ministry, it may be said that, while none of them 
attained great eminence, they averaged well among their contem- 
poraries as faithful and efficient ministers of Christ. A number 
of them entered the service of the Home Missionary Society, and 
did pioneer duty in the wilds of the far West, e.g., in Ohio, 
Indiana, Wisconsin, etc. Others settled in New England parishes 
and gained honorable mention for their work's sake. Special 
mention should be made of the venerable Dr. Edmund Dowse of 
Sherborn, who is among the few survivors of Dr. Ide's students, 
whose active pastorate in his native town exceeds that of his 
instructor by fifteen years, and who still abides among his 
people (July i), honored and revered. If Dr. Bushnell's theory 
is correct that men get a property right in the achievements of 
those whom they have started in service, then Dr. Ide's royalty 
upon what his students have done for the world is a revenue 
incalculable. 



46 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

In addition to his exacting work already noticed, Dr. Ide served 
for thirty years on the School Committee, •' a great proportion of 
the time without compensation." In connection with two other 
members of Mendon Association, he edited the Christian Maga- 
zine for four years, and occasionally contributed to its pages. He 
prepared for publication, with some assistance, the works of Dr. 
Emmons, aggregating seven octavo volumes of 550 pages each. 
He preached special sermons before various county and State 
organizations ; served as trustee of Amherst College and Wheaton 
Seminary. Reviewing his abundant labors, we read with surprise 
this statement in his semi-centennial sermon : " For the whole 
period of my ministerial life, I have been an invalid. This state 
of my health has been a perpetual embarassment to me. It has 
frustrated my plans, disappointed my expectations, rendered me 
timid and undecided in my resolutions respecting any future 
achievement." No wonder the Doctor chose as a most fitting text 
for his fifty years' review : " But by the grace of God I am what 
I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in 
vain." He pays a deserved tribute to the aid of his competent 
and affectionate wife, who was a very tangible exponent of the 
grace that was bestowed upon him, for as one of the speakers at 
the anniversary well said : *• Dr. Ide's excellent wife is entitled 
to share the honors of the celebration with her husband. Together 
theirs has been a model pastorate." 

The fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Ide's ordination, to which refer- 
ence has been made several times in this address, was recognized 
by a unique celebration. Seventy clergymen were present, among 
whom were Professor Park of Andover Theological Seminary, 
Dr. Nehemiah Adams of the Union church, Boston, Dr. A. L. 
Stone of Park Street, Secretary Anderson of the American Board, 
Dr. H. M. Dexter, editor of the Congregatiottalisty who took part 
in the service. Letters were read from Dr. Kirk, Dr. Manning 
of Boston, Dr. Gardiner Spring of New York, in whose epistle 
occurs this sentence : " Gabriel would not stoop to fill a throne, 
but he would rejoice to fill a pulpit." 

There were giants in those days, and they met to honor their 
venerable friend as an equal. 

I first knew Dr. Ide when he was an old man of eighty-seven 



OLD HOME DAV, 1904 47 

years. He was tall, erect and commanding in personal appear- 
ance ; his hair snow-white, his neck swathed with a spotless ker- 
chief, a sort of ministerial badge in his early days, courteous and 
benignant in his bearing, a fine type of the New England minister 
of a century ago. 

One Sabbath, by some arrangement of exchange, I preached in 
his old church and was entertained at his home between services. 
He came into the west parlor, where I was, and stood facing the 
window toward the sunset. There was snow on the ground. His 
hands rested on the head of his tall cane. He said, " I remember 
a New Year' s Sabbath long ago, for which I had prepared a 
special sermon. There was a heavy fall of snow on Saturday, and 
on Sunday it stood on a level as deep as this cane, the roads were 
blocked ; there was no service. The next New Year's Sabbath 
it was just the same, and the third." What became of the thrice 
snowbound sermon he did not say. 

There was a strain of quiet humor in his nature that lighted up 
his personality as flowers in a mountain crevice light up its rugged 
face wall. This crops out in his anniversary sermon here and 
there. Speaking of the students who came to him for instruction, 
instead of going to a seminary, as he advised, he says : " No one 
but themselves has reason to regret the course they pursued, 
unless it be the people t6 whom they preached." Of his sermons 
he said, ** How many sermons I have written I cannot say. If 
they were seen, I apprehend their numbers would be thought 
greater than their merits." He plays upon Paul's caution, " Be 
not unequally yoked with unbelievers," and thinks that some who 
have good wives are suffering from being unequally yoked with 
believers. " They have so much stronger faith and warmer hearts, 
and quicker motions, than we, they not infrequently get the fore 
end of the yoke, and, knowing nothing about backing, compel us 
to quicken our steps and draw a heavier draft than we are accus- 
tomed to move, in order to keep in line with them. Certainly in 
quick repartee and flashing humor, the Doctor was unequally 
yoked with a believer. A guest taking tea with the Ides in their 
later life, says that Mrs. Ide, while serving the tea, upset a rather 
awkward receptacle that held the milk. She instantly relieved 
the situation by saying, " I always thought the cow ought to be 
brought to the table." 



48 MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS 

There were families in North Bellingham connected with the 
West Medway parish. There was a Baptist church there, pre- 
sided over by a resident minister. The two clergymen frequently 
met at family gatherings, and were on cordial terms. One day 
the Baptist clergyman said, " Dr. Ide, I would like to exchange 
with you." The Doctor blandly replied, " I would be happy 
to accommodate you." " Well, when can we arrange for an 
exchange ? " " Oh, on your next Communion Sabbath," replied 
the sedate Doctor. The exchange was laid on the table. 

An irreligious man in that community, on his dying bed, was 
converted, and was very desirous of being baptized and joining the 
church. The two ministers were together in the sick chamber. 
Dr. Ide said, " What are we going to do about this matter ? " 
The Baptist brother replied. " Well, sprinking will have to do in 
this case" 

Jacob told me that after his graduation from the Seminary, he 
was at home trying to do the impossible — to create a sermon for 
a non-existent audience. The days went by, and the Doctor now 
and then asked if the sermon was finished, and the answer was 
continuously ** No." After about three weeks, the Doctor calmly 
said, " Well, Jacob, if you ever get into the ministry, you'll have 
to get a sermon done sometime." 

A few incidents show in what wholesome reverence the vener- 
able minister was held in the community. If a company of men 
were chaffing and joking in a store or public place, when Dr. Ide 
appeared it was the signal for silence. A parishioner of most 
obdurate will was once rebuked for his obstinacy. He replied, 
" What you call obstinacy in me \s firmness in Dr. Ide." 

One of his church members and a deacon, a man of wealth and 
great influence, but a victim at times of a most uncontrollable 
temper, flew into a rage at a parish meeting (at which the min- 
ister was present), and, with an oath, declared a proposition to be 
a fact. His nephew, a youth, was so shocked at this flagrant 
wickedness, that he went home and said to his mother, •' Uncle 

J will surely go to hell," and repeated the statement, " Uncle 

J will surely go to hell." " What do you mean ? " said his 

mother. " Uncle J swore today, right before Dr. Ide ! " 

The next day the deacon drove into Dr. Ide's yard a load of wood, 



OLD HOME DAY, 1904 49 

which tradition says was the finest load ever drawn through the 
streets of West Medway. Perhaps the deacon thought he would 
furnish reliable material for a good crop of coals which the Doctor 
could heap on his head next time he called, by way of foretaste or 
rebuke. 

The seasons came and went, and the years, but the venerable 
man scarce realized the transitions. The world of this once busy 
and achieving minister was fast shrinking to the dimensions of 
the four walls of his dwelling, and the marvel grew. Why does 
not God substitute the blessed rest of heaven for the irksome idle- 
ness of earth ? 

His last days were like the hours of vanishing twilight, after a 
golden October sunset, when the gray of oncoming night makes 
the/fafnres of the landscape one. 

The skilled theologian — The convincing preacher — The model 
pastor — The discreet adviser — The pioneer of reform — was 
a little child again, waiting to be rocked to sleep. Not long 
before his release, he stood in front of his study desk and offered 
this last audible prayer. " O Lord, when Thou hast kept us here 
on earth as long as it is Thy will, be pleased to take us home to 
Thyself." The prayer gained speedy answer, and "he passed 
through glory's morning gate, and walked in Paradise." 



TO THE PUBLIC. 



The Medway Historical Society congratulates itself upon the 
work it has been able to accomplish during the short period of two 
years since its incorporation. It has gathered a live membership 
of over one hundred, and in its permanent quarters in the Old 
Parish House it offers to public inspection an exhibit of great 
value, both financial and educational. It has provided the public 
of the town with over twenty lectures without an admission fee, 
and promises others of equal or greater merit for the future. It 
carried out the first Old Home Day last year, and presents a 
program today which is offered without apology ; in fact today's 
exercises are not only of present but of future value. We present 
this our first publication in the full confidence of public apprecia- 
tion. Two years ago we took up the question of a memorial for 
Dr. Ide, because the matter had lam dormant for nearly twenty- 
five years, and was a reflection upon the town. We raised the 
money, half in the Mendon Conference and half from miscellaneous 
sources, and today we dedicate a granite monument to this truly 
great man. We have marked two historic spots, and hope to con- 
tinue this line of effort until no important historic place in the 
original town remains unidentified. We have placed 1 1 1 markers, 
provided by the town, over the graves of revolutionary soldiers. 
We hope to be able to continue all lines of work appropriate to 
an organization of this character, and, with a continuance of the 
support of an interested membership, we trust the benefits to the 
town will be of that character which cannot be determined or 
measured by money considerations alone, but by that other stand- 
ard — the honest and sincere approval of all our people. 

MEDWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

W<fst Midway y August J, /po^. 



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